Random Thoughts To Start Off The Weekend

Fridays are always welcome, but this week I needed it more than I normally do. Why? See below some of the reasons mixed in with general randomness.

1. I have another long weekend ahead of me. Since we have to get rid off all the vacation and comp time days by the end of the year, I will take off days here and there and a big vacation over Christmas/ New Year.
2. Tomorrow is a Downhill MTB Race at Paris Mountain. That sounds like a fun thing to watch!
3. I have been lazy when it comes to workouts on Thursday and today, but I am looking forward to some nice running (preferably on a trail) and a longer outside bike ride.
4. They finally forecasted dry conditions over the next couple of days... I really need a break from the rain.
5. On Fridays, I normally have a chiropractor appointment, that's a good thing... My lower back was killing me all week and my knees acted up a couple of times. Once again, Renee did her magic and all is better now.
6. Terry and I need to start making Germany plans: picking out a race that we want to do (racing internationally, baby!), pulling together some sort of itinerary... We definitely want to stay a couple of days in Bavaria to meet up with some friends and do some cross country skiing, winter hiking and sightseeing in Munich.
7. I don't get any household duties done during the week and I always feel better after I got caught up with stuff.
8. I need to catch up on sleep!
9. According to the National Geographic Adventure magazine issue from Aug/Sep '09 page 20: "Follow that German! No matter what corners of the globe you've reached before any of your friends, you've likely found one thing there upon arrival: Germans. Somehow, they manage to get everywhere first. Since August is Europe's biggest vacation month, we checked in with Hauser Exkursionen in Munich to find out where Volk are going this year - so we know where to book for 2011." I thought that was funny. By the way... Namibia, Libya and Armenia are the places to go! ;-)
10. Kerrie, my team mate from the Blue Ridge Relay is taking off for a relay ride from Greenville SC to Austin TX this Sunday. This is the Palmetto Peloton Project Challenge to Conquer Cancer Ride (P3C3). Please have all the riders and their support crew in your thoughts and prayers. You can follow them on their blog!
11. Speaking of relays... The American Odyssey Relay is still planned for next year for team D.N.R. or a variation of it. Now I learned that there will be a solo attempt by this guy. Good luck for the preparations!
12. We decided to do the Dan Davis Memorial Turkey Trot again this year. That was my very first 5K (my first ever race was an 8K a couple of weeks before) and will also be the first race that I do for the second time. It's a nice race (good course, well organized) raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on Furman Campus.
13. This week, I was pretty good when it comes to food. There was just one cake incident yesterday (homemade banana chocolate-mousse cake), but that's okay....
14. They finally decided to turn on the heat in the office, after it felt like living in an iglo earlier this week... Well, let me rephrase this... They finally decided to turn of the A/C in the office. Thank goodness.

Have a great weekend everyone... Enjoy! ;-)

After the Race is Before the Race

Before writing this post, the famous Sepp Herberger quote "Nach dem Spiel is vor dem Spiel" (eng.: After the game is before the game.) was bouncing around in my head. I always loved this sentence, even in my non-athletics days, because it contains a very simple truth that can be applied to pretty much any field in your life. Sure it's great to have accomplished something, but most of the time ending something, means to start working towards something else. Only because you just finished this huge project at work doesn't mean you won't show up the next day taking on new challenges - right? Or do you want to end up like Wile E. Coyote in the picture (taken from Runner's World blog) above? ;-)

Obviously, the adventure of doing the Blue Ridge Relay is still not quite digested and I caught myself chuckling several times in the car on my way home from work just thinking of: the "safety thong", "Kerrie would never do this!", "You live on M&Ms and TUMS right?"... For some of the things you just had to be in van #2 otherwise it doesn't make any sense. You would think that so shortly after the relay, we wouldn't want to see or hear anything from each other, but yesterday there were already e-mails flying back and forth, talking about how much fun we had and to wrap up some organizational stuff. In the middle of all this, Brian (aka Guz) brought up the idea to venture out doing another relay and within minutes we basically decided to do the American Odyssey Relay (AOR) from Gettysburg PA to Washington D.C. end of April 2010 and over half of the BRR team already committed to join in the fun... And the rest will come along over the next couple of weeks - Sure thing! :-)

As promised, here are some links to race reports about the Blue Ridge Relay of other teams, in case you are interested. (Link list is taken from http://www.runningrelays.com)

• Run, Theoden, Run
• Foot Rx
• Coach K Is Going Somewhere
• Team 4Tunate (To Have 2 More Runners)
• Screaming Mountain Goats
• Run Bob Run Bob
• Ingram Running Team
• Just Kev.in

While I happily jumped on the bandwagon to do the AOR yesterday, I also finally decided NOT to do the American Warrior Triathlon this coming Saturday. Several reasons played into this decision and on top of the list is certainly that I wasn't able to train properly in the last three weeks. Even though I am not competing for trophies, I want to at least compete against myself and I don't feel like I would be able to… This was a tough one, because it means that I only did one triathlon in my first tri season and my plans at the beginning of the year were much more ambiguous. I guess, I have to do a better job planning my 2010 season. :-)

But it's still "before the race" for me because of the Race for the Cure 5K coming up on September 26th. I know, it "just" a 5K, but I like doing them… It's a nice distance, you don't have to put hours and hours of training into the preparation but it still keeps you from slacking. Also, it supports the great cause of fighting the fight against cancer and this is a topic that touches all of our lives in one way or another sooner or later. It's not too late to donate, click here for my fundraising page. Besides, I still have unfinished business with this race course around the CU-ICAR campus. I did the Candlelight Run end of June of this year. It was still over 90 degrees when the gun went off at 9 PM… The humidity was out of this world. I never suffered that much on a 5K and I never posted a worse time for this distance… Not this time…

Oh and I almost forgot, the official results of the Blue Ridge Relay are out.

Team: Do Not Resuscitate
Time: 31:47:53 hours
Placing Overall: 75/106
Placing in the Open Category: 33/45

Once again, great job team! The BRR is considered one of the most challenging relays and we jumped into the challenge with both feet as complete relay newbies and made it happen. So proud of our accomplishment!